Almost 2.5 billion people are excluded from formal banking

Three quarters of poor people around the world don't have a bank account, according to a report issued by the World Bank on Thursday.

"unbanked" for almost 2.5 billion people

The survey conducted last year of about 150,000 people in 148 countries found that more than 75 per cent of adults earning less than $2 a day did not use a bank.

The report calls this a phenomenon of being "unbanked" for almost 2.5 billion people, which is linked to income inequality.

It says the richest 20 per cent of adults in developing countries are more likely to have a formal account as opposed the poorest 20 per cent.

Leora Klapper, co-author of the report told Derrick Mbatha that this is the first global data base of financial inclusion using comparable questions and harmonized methodologies in the surveyed countries.